Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces. ~Marcel Proust

Thursday, January 7, 2016

The Best Move in Oregon Is To Simply Walk Away- The Sunday Collage

Please allow me to meander just a bit....

One of the great gifts of small town policing, the kind we saw in the Andy Griffith Show, was Andy's ability to resolve every situation amicably. This happens or used to happen in small town America. In my old policing days, I am not ashamed to say that often enough- drunken bar patrons would call the police station directly for a ride home and if we had time as we often did- we drove them home.

Back in those days, we didn't fear some public backlash. There was severability- which meant we were free to do our jobs as policemen without getting sued for the actions of others. That all changed in my lifetime as groups like M.A.D.D. and large award seeking lawyers found ways to sue the police and our employers, (government and thus taxpayers) for our actions. The lawyers were always looking for the most money or "deepest pockets." In the end, I won't speculate whether that was all good or bad. but it changed the way we did business and it also spelled death for policing ala Mayberry style and the places that policed in a similar fashion.

I remember being in Jackson Hole, Wy. in the early 90's once and reading about a big debate in the local paper in which the cops were defending the practice of taking would be drunk drivers home- long after the rest of us had thrown in the towel.

The next big police controversy to take center stage were vehicle pursuits. People were getting killed needlessly over small infractions and misdemeanors all over America. It was a big deal. Ultimately pursuit policies were revised and thinking changed. Law enforcement quit engaging in frivolous pursuits. We were consistently weighing them for their ill effects and refusing to engage in pursuits if they were too dangerous. I believe there are thousands of people alive today because police officers began to see the error in that "one size fits all" approach to pursuing drivers for every minor offense.

The point of those two illustrations is that circumstances beyond our control caused us to rethink the way we did business. We became better risk managers. We began to see the larger picture and the ill effects of our actions. Every way of resolving a situation was examined. We made better decisions.

In the story you will see a picture of a small visitor center. This I guess, is what the militia has taken over and occupied. Big deal.

What would Andy do?

Well, let's think. Nobody has been hurt or taken hostage. There have probably been a couple of minor crimes committed, trespassing and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, but all in all- not much of anything has really transpired. The Bundys and their supporters are responsible- they have publicly claimed responsibility thus investigating this at some future point and charging them appropriately seems pretty easy- albeit a little time consuming. What's the worst thing that can happen if law enforcement packs it up and goes home? Maybe a government building gets destroyed. Big deal. I doubt they will do that anyway.

So you know what I'm thinking?

The smart move here is to simply fold up shop and go home. Nobody gets hurt, the Bundys' will no longer have a stage with which to draw attention to this situation or their plight, and the media will conduct a few interviews and go home. If the Bundys' and their friends break any serious laws- it will greatly damage their future credibility and subject them to the consequences.

So if this was my Mayberry, I'd tell the troops to go home. Maybe check in on things once in awhile to make sure Cliven Bundy doesn't accidentally shoot himself in the foot or poach a deer in the off season. Sooner or later they'll run out of food, energy, and passion and go home.

We'll see if the Feds can sort this out. Perhaps they will worry and speculate that leaving this mess behind will embolden other groups to take over the parking attendant jobs at Mt. Rushmore or the guard shack at the Grand Canyon where the Feds shake us down for 20 bucks. In a way, the whole thing seems pretty comical. Never under estimate the ability of government to screw things up. They can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory nearly every time.

7 comments:

I miss the good old days. You know that Kuna Mora Road exit off I-84? Back in the 1980s several of us with classic drag race muscle cars would trailer out there at midnight and drag race until about 4:00am.. We had some ten second to 14 second hot rods out there. Looking bcd on it, it was fun as hell and pretty dumb. I mean hell man, my 1966 SS Chevelle was show quality tricked out and running high 11s.. That was no place for that car. But you know how it is when you're young and dumb and full cum..And gawd man it was chick heaven out there.. So the best part was always the state police who parked off the road at the end of our marked off quarter mile and they'd radar us to get out speed.. Those guys loved hot rods and drag racing.. If we tried that these days we'd probably get shot. And the enviros would be screaming something about disturbing the lizards and jack rabbits.. And Maughan himself would sue us with a 200 page lawsuit environmental impact statement.. oh well.. I sold that hot rod for 38K three years ago.. I've been fantasizing about a Black 69 SS Chevelle with the appropriate drive train with a purring 1200 horse powered rat motor under the hood.. Uh oh, maybe not.. Hey I know, how about an old Dodge Challenger and another Vanishing Point in real time.. yeah baby, that might be fun..

I had two Challengers. I crashed the first one oddly, drag racing. The other was stolen from me.

Things seemed so much more kinder and gentler back then. The cops didn't try to make a federal case out of every minor crime. I got in a running gun battle with the school district in the WRV. The district wanted to bust every kid- smoking tickets. I didn't. You'd think we were both on the wrong side.

I never stopped one kid from smoking by giving him a ticket. Not that I know of anyway.

YEP. BLM is bankrupting ranchers and basically stealing their lands and adding the lands to their collection of lands in the west.. How dare the ranchers get pissed about it.. USFS did the same to my old man. Our land is surrounded by their land and they want us off our land. They've been fucking with us for several years. We've pissed off $100K in federal court keeping them off our land. Now they're starting some shit with us over the water. It never ends. I had a couple hundred head of cattle and I got so sick of fighting with them I sold them all.. It seems to me folks would be wondering why they want our guns, and want to break food producers. I think the why is obvious. I guess we'll know for sure when they go for it..